1905–1930: The Golden Age of Physics

Abstract

The synthesis of classical mechanics, of the Coulomb law of electrostatics and of the condition of angular momentum quantization, later replaced by the mathematically equivalent de Broglie wavelength expression, led a century ago to the rotating electron Bohr model of the H atom. This model provided a very successful description of all previous related spectroscopic data. In subsequent decades both the classical mechanical part of the model and thus unavoidably also the de Broglie wavelength expression part were replaced in the Schrödinger formalism by the electron wavefunction, although the results of this probabilistic quantum mechanical formulation were in excellent agreement with those of the classical deterministic Bohr or Bohr-Sommerfeld models. What is the equivalent deterministic Bohr-type rotating particle model combining classical mechanics, generalized perhaps to include special relativity, gravitational attraction in addition to, or rather than, Coulombic attraction and the de Broglie wavelength expression? To what physical problem such a model corresponds to? This is the question presented and analyzed in this book. The result is surprising and fascinating. When examining three rotating particles with the mass of a neutrino each, then, one finds without any adjustable parameters, that the corresponding rotational states correspond to a neutron. The rotating relativistic neutrinos act as quarks and the action of the relativistic gravitational attraction is equivalent to the action of gluons. Agreement with experiment is at least semiquantitative.